The tales of a Ghanaian Swede in Accra.
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Monday, 22 March 2010

World Water Day: Water, water everywhere and not a drop to spare...

The saying above pretty much sums up Ghana. With an ocean edging the entire southern border o the country, a lake so vast it provides us all with electricity (well, sometimes) and rivers and waterfalls all over our land, it is amazing that we struggle for water each day.

Any given morning, on our street in Labone, you'll find school children carrying an orange gallon of water back home for the morning's preparations, before heading off to school. Some of us are lucky to have polytanks collecting the water as it runs, because like many water-lacking areas, we only get water about three times a week. Yet on one of those mornings that I catch a small boy walking a looong way for water, I happen to pass the Osu road that leads from Ebeneezer Presbyterian Church to Kingdom Books, and what do I see on my right? Through a crack in a wall, water is gushing, gushing out of a broken pipe into nowhere and everywhere.(This beautiful picture borrowed from Anderson Cooper's blog)The unfair, unnecessary waste hits my stomach with pain. What are we doing? How is it that this most precious item that we cannot live without is allowed to escape freely, when just around the corner there are people in dire need of it? With so many water efficient ways of living, it is time this issue moves up on the list of our land's priorities and we see a change in the water situation in Ghana today. I hope to mention a few water efficient ways later in the week if ECG and Vodafone permit me to.

Today is World Water Day. (As if on cue, the water in our bathroom decided to stop running despite the fact that it is running everywhere else and the tanks are full!). Appreciate every drop of water that passes your way. There are those who don't have that privilege.